Leave A Comment

Ponticelli Joins Mieville’s “Dial H” in December

It seems as though DC Comics’ New 52 is about to go through another round of artistic shake-ups on its books. The publisher revealed that “Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.” artist Alberto Ponticelli will replace Mateus Santoluoco as ongoing artist for “Dial H” beginning in December with “Dial H” #7, which kicks off a new storyline featuring Nelso and Manteau on a trip to Europe to search for a relic that may hold the secret to their powers — an arc teased by this month’s zero issue.

“Part of the trick for me, at least what I wanted to be able to do, was to have exactly that, a big story, but still have the enjoyable craziness of the episodic structure,” Mieville said at the launch of “Dial H” in May. “I didn’t just want to start this because I wanted to invent these characters and that would be the end of the story. I had very specific aims in mind. First, think about the psychology. Let’s think about what this does to a person’s psyche. And secondly, let’s talk about the backstory, because ‘Dial H,’ in some form or another, has been going in the DCU since the 1960s and the origin of the Dial has never been done. And that’s absolutely incredible. That’s a rare thing in a universe as thoroughly mapped as the DC Universe. One of things I want to do is start approaching questions like that. You don’t explore the backstory just in passing in one issue. That’s a big deal. For that reason, one of the overarching projects of the comic will be to start examining the mythos of the Dial and start getting into its backstory. I don’t want to do it in a way that ruins all the mystery, because the mystery is part of the pleasure, but I certainly want to try and negotiate that.”

“Dial H” is the first of DC’s “Second Wave” to receive a major artistic shift so far and Ponticelli’s addition to the title comes shortly after the announcement of Joe Prado and Ivan Reis replacing Jim Lee on “Justice League.” The situation is reminiscent of the publisher’s New 52 creative shift in January before the “Second Wave,” which saw Peter Milligan shift to “Stormwatch,” Jeff Lemire take over “Justice League Dark” and Matt Kindt writing “Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E” with a number of other changes.